A total of 53 films from Quebec and the rest of Canada will be shown in the Focus section of the 42nd Festival du nouveau cinéma, which runs Oct. 9 to 20. This year’s Focus program includes 12 features in competition, six out of competition and 35 shorts.

Frédérick Pelletier’s first feature Diego Star, about a mechanic from the Ivory Coast who works aboard an old Cargo ship, is the opening film. Other Quebec films in competitition include: James Galwey and Jeanne Pope’s documentary Chez Lise, a love story between two people suffering from bipolarity and schizophrenia; Onur Karaman’s La ferme des humains, about the urban life of young immigrants; Steven Morris’s documentary Vann “Piano Man” Walls: The Spirit of R&B; Jeff Barnaby’s Kahnawake-shot thriller Rhymes for Young Ghouls; Guillaume Sylvestre’s Secondaire V, following graduating students at a multi-ethnic Outremont high school; Sebastien Landry’s first film Un parallèle plus tard, following a hacker forced to go on the run; Luc Bourdon and Alice Ronfard’s Une vie pour deux,based on Ronfard’s play in which a couple finds a dead woman on a beach; Marie-Hélène Cousineau and Madeline Piujuq Ivalu’s Uvanga, about a mother and son’s meeting with the Inuit family of the deceased father; and Emanuel Hoss-Desmarais’s White Wash, which won best new narrative filmmaker at Tribeca, about a sidewalk-plough driver who accidentally kills someone.

Among the Canadian films to be shown are Gia Milani’s All the Wrong Reasons, one of the last films starring late actor Cory Monteith; Bruce LaBruce’s sexual deviance exploration Gerontophilia; and Katherine Knight and Marcia Connolly’s documentary Spring and Arnaud, about artist couple Spring Hurlbut and Arnaud Maggs, who died in 2012.

The Festival du nouveau cinéma announces its full lineup on Tuesday. For more information, visit www.nouveaucinema.ca

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